Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 372 posts

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#261

Post by sedachv »

tengbretson wrote: post #249
bt848 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also think we avoided the future predicted by “The Population Bomb” but we didn’t.

We obviously did.

From Chapter 6 of the "Population Bomb," titled "What If I'm Wrong?":

"To cover this contingency, I would like to propose an analogue to Pascal's famous wager… If I'm right, we will save the world. If I'm wrong, people will still be better fed, better housed, and happier,thanks to our efforts. Will anything be lost if it turns out later that we can support a much larger population than seems possible today? Suppose we move to stabilize the size of the human population after the "time of famines" at two billion people, and we achieve that goal by 2150. Suppose that in 2151 someone invents a machine that will produce nutritious food or anything else man wants in limitless quantities out of nothing. Assume also that in 2151 mankind decides that the Earth is underpopulated with just two billion people. Men decide that they want more company. Fortunately, people can be reproduced in vast quantities by unskilled labor who enjoy their work."

And this quote from an earlier chapter:

"What will be done with leisure time and money when all vacation spots are crowded beyond belief? Is it worth living in the Los Angeles smog for 50 weeks in order to spend two weeks in Yosemite Valley - when the Valley in the summer may be even more crowded than L.A. and twice as smoggy? What good is having the money for a fishing trip when fish are dead or poisonous because of pesticide pollution? Why own a fancy car in which to get asphyxiated in monster traffic jams?"

Live in Los Angeles, can confirm.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#262

Post by PeterStuer »

abootstrapper wrote: post #104
point78 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trim the world population

There are better solutions to climate change. But access to solid sex education, free birth control, and legal and safe abortions would go far to aid in a lot of issues, over population included. It wouldn’t even require any draconian measures, just give people the tools for proper family planning.

You realize that the latest global 2050 population estimates while being more or less unchanged in total (11B+), had an upward prediction for Africa as a direct consequence of the Trump administration's changes in support for birth control programs in the region?

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#263

Post by saagarjha »

refurb wrote: post #214
Scarblac wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that beavers didn't suddenly start doing that, the ecosystems they live in co-evolved around the existence of beavers. On time scales relevant to evolution, human civilization is happening in an instant and nothing can adapt as fast. The result is a gigantic loss of biodiversity.

Bacteria can mutate quite quickly and wipe out an entire species pretty fast, reducing biodiversity.

Can they wipe out thousands of species?

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#264

Post by PeterStuer »

jjuhl wrote: post #25
glogla wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overpopulation rhetoric is eugenics.

No it's not. There are too many humans on the planet. Reducing the number would lead to a more sustainable situation. That's just basic logic.

Our socio-economic model is completely dependent on 'growth' and consumption. It can not accept abstinence in any form as a solution to anything.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#265

Post by saagarjha »

AprilArcus wrote: post #224
tgarv wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually wondering recently if there has ever been a huge spike in, say, a new species of algae or something, that caused a large change in the atmosphere. I know that what we're doing as a species isn't "natural", and we know better and could avoid it if we really wanted to, but it still had me thinking about what kinds of things the planet has gone through before that would have been alarming at the time if s…

The Azolla Event ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event ) was a cyclical bloom of duckweed-like ferns in the Arctic Ocean about 49 million years ago which drew down atmospheric CO2 by an order of magnitude, from 3500 ppm (responsible for the warm, verdant climate you think about when you imagine the Mesozoic era) to 650 ppm (responsible for the cold, cyclical glaciations you think about when you imagine the mod…

(FWIW, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels pre-Industrial Revolution were about 280 ppm, and today are just over 400 ppm.)

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#266

Post by nearbuy »

commandlinefan wrote: post #80
technothrasher wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or we die out and the planet recovers on its own. That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. Without us, the planet would just go on changing, without anything to judge the current environment at any point as good or bad to any particular standard. Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.

> Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves I wonder, though... we know, for example, that bees pollinate plants, and that we need plants to be pollinated for our survival. But if the bees die out, we can figure out another technical way to pollinate plants - it might be a pain to carry out, and we might be kicking ourselves for not saving the bees before it got to that point, but it can be done. If it comes…

I really don't like the destruction of our environment, and we should protect it, but the idea that humans depend on bees (and even more so for wild bees) for survival is a complete myth.

> The most essential staple food crops on the planet, like corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and sorghum, need no insect help at all; they are wind pollinated or self pollinating. Other staple food crops, like bananas and plantains, are sterile and propagated from cuttings, requiring no pollination of any form, ever. Further, foods such as root vegetables and salad crops will produce a useful food crop without pollination, though they may not set seed; and hybrids do not even require insect pollination to produce seeds for the next generation, because hybrid production is always human pollinated. Many of the most desirable and common non-hybrid crops, like heirloom tomatoes, are self pollinated, which is what makes their cultivars stable. [1]

There's a second misconception that the number of domestic bees is declining. This also isn't true. I think people are confused because of the increase in Colony Collapse Disorder. The actual number of domestic bees has increased over the past decade.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated...

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#267

Post by MAGZine »

Yhippa wrote: post #156

This is one of the saddest things I've read in a long time. Birds are amazing. It's amazing to me that they are the descendants of dinosaurs and they're all around us. Their songs and plumage are beautiful to me. > Grassland species have suffered the biggest declines by far, having lost 717 million birds. These birds have probably been decimated by modern agriculture and development. This one I'm not totally sure is…

Not that it is necessarily the answer—but things like buying organic (reduce pesticide use), planting flower varietals that can be homes to diverse insect populations, consuming less animal protein, can be a good start.

Part of what I think we're seeing is that people are allowed to do whatever they want with their land without consideration for its wider impact on the environment. Just like we think that maybe destroying habitats by building dams, we should be cognizant of how and what we're doing to the environment with (especially) our farming practices.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#268

Post by PeterStuer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #143
isodude wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing could simple as not adding that many more all the time. Increasing the level of global education will have that effect in itself.

Sure, not adding will work... by 2200, maybe 2100. But, if you believe the current panic about the climate, that's far too late. So if you think that the population has to be reduced, and you think that we need action by 2050 at the latest, what is your proposal?

Given that our current education system seems to result in a sharp rise of the flat-earthers and the anti-vaxers, spreading it might just do the trick /s

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#269

Post by saagarjha »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #53
Isinlor wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not sure if Bayer is such a good name either. Bayer was part of conglomerate producing Zyklon B used by Germans to kill millions of people.

I mean they also were the first to market Heroine, that hasn't really stopped sales of asprin.

(Heroin.)

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#270

Post by saagarjha »

PeterStuer wrote: post #260
JackRabbitSlim wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. John Forbs Nash did the math 40 years ago. Nothing changes until its profitable to change and it will only be profitable to change when its already to late.

It is far worse than that. Market capitalism can not move us from local maxima even when we know far higher maxima exist.

I wonder if the market can exhibit “profit tunneling” where you can temporarily violate the classical rules as long as you end up “making up for it”.
Post reply on HN